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amusicalbookworm 's review for:
The Pilgrim's Regress
by C.S. Lewis
I liked this book very much! This is a completely allegorical journey of John, who is in search of the "Island" and goes through an arduous physical journey to find it. The entire physical journey is actually one big long allegory for a spiritual journey and man's search for fulfillment in God.
While this apparently was his first work he wrote after his conversion to Christianity, I would strongly caution against starting here if you're reading CS Lewis for the first time. I think to really get the most out of this book, you need to know CS Lewis and the way his mind works first. I enjoyed the wonderful weirdness of the symbolic characters, land, and situations John finds himself in. I do think that Lewis tries to cram too much philosophy into one allegory, and at times the story can feel a bit muddy and it gets verrrrry dense. Lewis himself would probably agree with that, because he actually wrote an afterword for the book, apologizing for it (lol). However, I don't think he really needed to apologize, this book is completely worth reading for any Lewis fan. But, you probably need a little bit of a background in apologetics before picking this up... otherwise you will be frustrated and confused very quickly.
It's one that I look forward to revisiting at a later date, probably after I've read Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (the format of this book is modeled after Bunyan's work). I'm sure I missed quite a bit of parallels between the two works. Regardless, this is a book that I will think about and ponder for a long time.
While this apparently was his first work he wrote after his conversion to Christianity, I would strongly caution against starting here if you're reading CS Lewis for the first time. I think to really get the most out of this book, you need to know CS Lewis and the way his mind works first. I enjoyed the wonderful weirdness of the symbolic characters, land, and situations John finds himself in. I do think that Lewis tries to cram too much philosophy into one allegory, and at times the story can feel a bit muddy and it gets verrrrry dense. Lewis himself would probably agree with that, because he actually wrote an afterword for the book, apologizing for it (lol). However, I don't think he really needed to apologize, this book is completely worth reading for any Lewis fan. But, you probably need a little bit of a background in apologetics before picking this up... otherwise you will be frustrated and confused very quickly.
It's one that I look forward to revisiting at a later date, probably after I've read Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (the format of this book is modeled after Bunyan's work). I'm sure I missed quite a bit of parallels between the two works. Regardless, this is a book that I will think about and ponder for a long time.